


Absolution

by murkfree



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Challenge Response, Cookies, Couch Cuddles, Drabble Collection, Drinking to Cope, F/M, First Kiss, Late Night Conversations, Picnics, Season/Series 05, Season/Series 06, Season/Series 07, Sexual Inexperience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 08:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12453372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murkfree/pseuds/murkfree
Summary: Carol and Daryl are always there for each other, even when they can't be there for themselves.  A set of five linked drabbles set in seasons 5, 6, and 7.Written for the Caryl Bingo challenge over on Nine Lives.  The challenge was to get "bingo" by using five Caryl tropes/themes in the same fic.  The prompt/bingo row I chose was: Constable Cockblock, drunk confessions, Carol teaches Daryl, picnic, Daryl's bike.





	1. Picnic

Daryl knows something happened with the girls.  In addition to her pack, Carol carries an invisible burden so great that he can almost see it.  Even when she falls into sleep after a double watch, the tension doesn’t quite disappear from her face, her shoulders, the curve of her spine.

But he’s never known someone as strong as Carol.  As the members of the group collapse under a spreading willow, desperate for rest in the scorching heat of midday, she takes off her jacket and spreads it on the ground at his feet.

“Sit down,” she says.

She pulls out a dented can of refried beans, her portion of the meager pickings they scavenged from a wrecked campervan earlier that morning.  With a few deft jabs of her knife, she pries open the can and thrusts it into his hands.  Then she flops down on the jacket beside him. 

“Real hot day for a picnic,” she mutters.  He pauses halfway through a mouthful of beans to look at her in disbelief, sitting with her bare arms wrapped around her knees and a faraway glaze on her eyes.

“You call this a picnic?”  he asks. 

She takes the can of beans and scoops out a bite with a broken plastic spoon.  She chews and swallows, then smiles, so quick he nearly misses it. 

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she says. 

He shakes his head ruefully.  His gratitude at having her back, however broken, however scarred, reaches right down into his bones.

 

 

 

 


	2. Daryl's Bike

Of course the goddamn car ran out of gas.  There’s a general shortage of full tanks in the world now, and their frantic chase of the car with the white cross on its window no doubt sucked their vehicle dry to its very last fumes.  Daryl slams the door shut with significantly more force than required, deeply frustrated at how  _everything_  always manages to go wrong.

He’s checking to make sure Carol’s behind him when he hears retching.  Nearly vaulting over the hood in his rush to get to her, he finds her on her knees, vomiting weakly onto the pavement outside the passenger door.

“Y’okay?  You sick?  Shhh, shhh, there you go.”  He lays a tentative hand on her shoulder.

After one last heave, she lifts her head up, taking the red bandanna he offers and wiping her mouth. 

“I’m okay,” she gulps.  “I got…I think I got  _carsick_.  If you can believe it.”

“Just carsick?  Y’sure that’s all it is?”  He grabs her hand and helps her to her feet, feeling her palm clammy against his fingers.

“Yeah, that’s all it was,” she says.  “Guess I got used to riding on your bike.  Cars still feel all closed up to me.”

As they walk away from the useless car, Daryl flashes back to their days at the prison.  They’d go out on supply runs just the two of them sometimes, and she’d wrap her arms around him real tight as the scenery flashed past on either side of the Triumph’s handlebars.  It would feel like her arms were the only thing keeping his heart from beating right out of his chest.  Yeah, he misses that bike too.

 

 


	3. Drunk Confessions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it's not 100% clear from the chapter itself, Daryl sees Beth as a little sister.

Carol can just barely hear the clink of glass over the sound of the torrential rain.  When Sasha woke her for her watch, she’d thought everyone was sound asleep, exhausted after holding the barn doors closed against a herd of ravenous walkers.  But someone else is awake too.

She finds Daryl in the entryway, sitting hunched against the wall with Abraham’s bottle of whiskey in his hands.  He’s found a coffee mug somewhere, and as she watches, he pours a shot into the mug and downs it in one swig.  She suspects it’s not the first time he’s stayed up drinking since Beth died.

“Rough night, huh?”  She eases herself down beside him.  She can keep watch from here as well as anywhere else.

Daryl won’t meet her eyes.  His despair radiates off him, as palpable as the reek of liquor. 

“Coulda kept her safe,” he mumbles into the coffee mug.  “Shoulda been me in her place.”  Carol waits, saying nothing.  Daryl sets the mug down with a loud  _clunk_. 

“Y’don’t even know, do you?”  he asks her, slurring slightly.  “Lost Beth…thought you were gone too, back at Grady…I  _can’t_.  Can’t even think ’bout if you were gone for good.  Don’t never wanna see you hurt, ever again.  Don’t never wanna be ’part from you again.   _Carol_.”

Daryl lifts his head at last.  His face is dark, lost, searching for some answer that she can’t give.  She can only reach for his hand and hold it tight as the storm rages all around them.

 

 


	4. Constable Cockblock

It feels like centuries have passed since the last time Carol took a batch of cookies out of the oven.  She nearly forgets to use an oven mitt.  As she presses a fork into the top of each cookie, scoring them with decorative lines while they’re still soft, she hears a boot scuff behind her.

“Hey,”  Daryl says.  He’s nervous, shy, shifting from foot to foot.  “Y’think you can make it out for a run tomorrow?  Gonna hit the army surplus store down the highway.” 

Carol sighs.  The character she’s been playing here doesn’t go out on runs.  And the woman beneath that character, the one who can take out an entire compound with a rocket launcher—well, Carol’s not ready to let that woman out again yet.

“Not this time.  Sorry, Pookie.  Will you eat one of these, though?”

He takes a cookie, but instead of eating the whole thing, he breaks it in half and gives one half to her.  “Been sharin’ with you too long to break the habit,” he says. 

Carol smiles as they chew together.  She knows that he’s trying his absolute best to fit in here, even though everything about Alexandria grates on him like sandpaper.  Sometimes, knowing that he’s trying is the only thing that keeps her trying, too.

“Daryl,” she says abruptly, reaching out to catch his wrist before he can lick his fingers.  “About that night, when we were in the barn…”

“You in here, Daryl?” Rick strides into the kitchen, all business and purpose.  Carol drops Daryl’s hand, and takes a step back when she realizes how close the two of them are standing.

“Yeah, m’coming, let’s get them cars loaded up.”  The two men leave the kitchen, but Daryl glances back over his shoulder in parting.  Carol turns back to the cookies, gathering the strength to go on for another day.

 

 


	5. Carol Teaches Daryl

The little house on the edge of the Kingdom feels like it might as well be on the edge of the earth.  Daryl sits on the loveseat, still reeling with the overwhelming relief of seeing Carol and being able to wrap his arms around her.  He knows that before he leaves, he’ll have to lie to her about what happened with Negan, because she’s not ready to fight again yet.  But for now, they haven’t gotten around to that question.

“Hey, move over,” she says.  She cuddles next to him on the loveseat.  There was a time when he would have flinched away, but now he accepts the contact gratefully, draping his arm over her shoulders and pulling her close.  For a moment, he can almost imagine sitting with her like this before the Turn, if they had known each other then.  If everything had been different.

Carol leans against his chest.  “I thought I was going to die,” she says into his collarbone.  She traces the edge of the bandage that peeks out from his shirt.  Daryl thinks to himself that either of them could have quite easily died before ever seeing each other again.  It’s that thought that makes him put two fingers under her chin, gently turning her face up to his.  He has something in his mind to say, but he loses it.  So instead, he kisses her.

 _You don’t know what it is to be hungry_.  One of the men from Terminus had said that long ago, but as he kisses Carol, Daryl realizes that he  _does_  know what hunger is.  He’s been starving for this kiss his entire life, and he hasn’t even known it until this moment.  Carol’s mouth is soft and warm, opening slightly against his.  Her hand comes up to tangle in his hair.  When they pull apart, her face is flushed, and both of them are breathing hard and shallow.

She tilts her head to the side and pulls the neck of her shirt open slightly.  She runs a finger over Daryl’s lips, then brings it to the spot low on her neck where her pulse is closest to the surface.  “Right here,” she breathes.

Daryl dives down to kiss her neck, sucking and licking, unable to get enough of her.  Carol moans and shudders, throwing her head back.  He comes up for air and claims her lips again.  He’s utterly clumsy, but Carol doesn’t seem to care.  She takes the lead, guiding his mouth with her own, drawing both of them into a frenetic rhythm. 

For the rest of the afternoon, the outside world really does cease to exist.  Daryl wonders at his own body, in awe that an instrument so accustomed to degradation and pain can give and receive pleasure such as this.  There are still words left unsaid between him and Carol, and deeds left unconfessed.  But in the dying light, they come home to each other, and do what they can by way of absolution.

 

 

 


End file.
